Rudder Grange — Ch. 15: In which two New Friends disport themselves, pt. 1

CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH TWO NEW FRIENDS DISPORT THEMSELVES.

“The nex' mornin' was fine an' nice,” continued Pomona, “an' after our breakfast had been brought to us, we went out in the grounds to take a walk.

There was lots of trees back of the house, with walks among 'em, an' altogether it was so ole-timey an' castleish that I was as happy as a lark.

“'Come along, Earl Miguel,' I says; 'let us tread a measure 'neath these mantlin' trees.'

“'All right,' says he.

'Your Jiguel attends you.

An' what might our noble second name be?

What is we earl an' earl-ess of?'

“'Oh, anything,' says I. 'Let's take any name at random.'

“'All right,' says he.

'Let it be random.

Earl an' Earl-ess Random.

Come along.'

“So we walks about, I feelin' mighty noble an' springy, an' afore long we sees another couple a-walkin' about under the trees.

“'Who's them?'

says I. “'Don't know,' says he, 'but I expect they're some o' the other boarders.

The man said he had other boarders when I spoke to him about takin' us.'

“'Let's make-believe they're a count an' count says I. 'Count an' Countess of--' “'Milwaukee,' says he.

“I didn't think much of this for a noble name, but still it would do well enough, an' so we called 'em the Count an' Countess of Milwaukee, an' we kep' on a meanderin'.

Pretty soon he gets tired an' says he was agoin' back to the house to have a smoke because he thought it was time to have a little fun which weren't all imaginations, an' I says to him to go along, but it would be the hardest thing in this world for me to imagine any fun in smokin'.

He laughed an' went back, while I walked on, a-makin'-believe a page, in blue puffed breeches, was a-holdin' up my train, which was of light-green velvet trimmed with silver lace.

Pretty soon, turnin' a little corner, I meets the Count and Countess of Milwaukee.

She was a small lady, dressed in black, an' he was a big fat man about fifty years old, with a grayish beard.

They both wore little straw hats, exac'ly alike, an' had on green carpet-slippers.

“They stops when they sees me, an' the lady she bows and says 'good-mornin',' an' then she smiles, very pleasant, an' asks if I was a-livin' here, an' when I said I was, she says she was too, for the present, an' what was my name.

I had half a mind to say the Earl-ess Random, but she was so pleasant and sociable that I didn't like to seem to be makin' fun, an' so I said I was Mrs. De Henderson.

“'An' I,' says she, 'am Mrs. General Andrew Jackson, widow of the ex-President of the United States.

I am staying here on business connected with the United States Bank.

This is my brother,' says she, pointin' to the big man.

“'How d'ye do?'

says he, a-puttin' his hands together, turnin' his toes out an' makin' a funny little bow.

'I am General Tom Thumb,' he says in a deep, gruff voice, 'an' I've been before all the crown-ed heads of Europe, Asia, Africa, America an' Australia,--all a's but one,--an' I'm waitin' here for a team of four little milk-white oxen, no bigger than tall cats, which is to be hitched to a little hay-wagon, which I am to ride in, with a little pitch-fork an' real farmer's clothes, only small.

This will come to-morrow, when I will pay for it an' ride away to exhibit.

It may be here now, an' I will go an' see.

Good-bye.'

“'Good-bye, likewise,' says the lady.

'I hope you'll have all you're thinkin' you're havin', an' more too, but less if you'd like it.

Farewell.'

An' away they goes.

“Well, you may be sure, I stood there amazed enough, an' mad too when I heard her talk about my bein' all I was a-thinkin' I was.

I was sure my husband--scarce two weeks old, a husband--had told all.

It was too bad.

I wished I had jus' said I was the Earl-ess of Random an' brassed it out.

“I rushed back an' foun' him smokin' a pipe on a back porch.

I charged him with his perfidy, but he vowed so earnest that he had not told these people of our fancies, or ever had spoke to 'em, that I had to believe him.

“'I expec',' says he, 'that they're jus' makin'-believe--as we are.

There aint no patent on make-believes.'

“This didn't satisfy me, an' as he seemed to be so careless about it I walked away, an' left him to his pipe.

I determined to go take a walk along some of the country roads an' think this thing over for myself.

I went aroun' to the front gate, where the woman of the house was a-standin' talkin' to somebody, an' I jus' bowed to her, for I didn't feel like sayin' anything, an' walked past her.

“'Hello!'

said she, jumpin' in front of me an' shuttin' the gate.

'You can't go out here.

If you want to walk you can walk about in the grounds.

There's lots of shady paths.'

“'Can't go out!'

says I. 'Can't go out!

What do you mean by that?'

“'I mean jus' what I say,' said she, an' she locked the gate.

“I was so mad that I could have pushed her over an' broke the gate, but I thought that if there was anything of that kind to do I had a husband whose business it was to attend to it, an' so I runs aroun' to him to tell him.

He had gone in, but I met Mrs. Jackson an' her brother.

“'What's the matter?'

said she, seein' what a hurry I was in.

“'That woman at the gate,' I said, almost chokin' as I spoke, 'wont let me out.'

“'She wont?'

said Mrs. Jackson.

'Well, that's a way she has.

Four times the Bank of the United States has closed its doors before I was able to get there, on account of that woman's obstinacy about the gate.

Indeed, I have not been to the Bank at all yet, for of course it is of no use to go after banking hours.'

“'An' I believe, too,' said her brother in his heavy voice, 'that she has kept out my team of little oxen.

Otherwise it would be here now.'

“I couldn't stand any more of this an' ran into our room where my husband was.

When I told him what had happened, he was real sorry.

“'I didn't know you thought of going out,' he said, 'or I would have told you all about it.

An' now sit down an' quiet yourself, an' I'll tell you jus' how things is.'

So down we sits, an' says he, jus' as carm as a summer cloud, 'My dear, this is a lunertic asylum.

Now, don't jump,' he says; 'I didn't bring you here, because I thought you was crazy, but because I wanted you to see what kind of people they was who imagined themselves earls and earl-esses, an' all that sort o' thing, an' to have an idea how the thing worked after you'd been doing it a good while an' had got used to it.

I thought it would be a good thing, while I was Earl Jiguel and you was a noble earl-ess, to come to a place where people acted that way.

I knowed you had read lots o' books about knights and princes an' bloody towers, an' that you knowed all about them things, but I didn't suppose you did know how them same things looked in these days, an' a lunertic asylum was the only place where you could see 'em.

So I went to a doctor I knowed,' he says, 'an' got a certificate from him to this private institution, where we could stay for a while an' get posted on romantics.'

“'Then,' says I, 'the upshot was that you wanted to teach a lesson.'

“'Jus' that,' says he.

“'All right,' says I; 'it's teached.

An' now let's get out of this as quick as we kin.'

“'That'll suit me,' he says, 'an' we'll leave by the noon train.

I'll go an' see about the trunk bein' sent down.'

“So off he went to see the man who kept the house, while I falls to packin' up the trunk as fast as I could.

” “Weren't you dreadfully angry at him?

” asked Euphemia, who, having a romantic streak in her own composition, did not sympathize altogether with this heroic remedy for Pomona's disease.

“No, ma'am,” said Pomona, “not long.

When I thought of Mrs. General Jackson and Tom Thumb, I couldn't help thinkin' that I must have looked pretty much the same to my husband, who, I knowed now, had only been makin'-believe to make-believe.

An' besides, I couldn't be angry very long for laughin, for when he come back in a minute, as mad as a March hare, an' said they wouldn't let me out nor him nuther, I fell to laughin' ready to crack my sides.

“'They say,' said he, as soon as he could speak straight, 'that we can't go out without another certificate from the doctor.

I told 'em I'd go myself an' see him about it but they said no, I couldn't, for if they did that way everybody who ever was sent here would be goin' out the next day to see about leavin'.

I didn't want to make no fuss, so I told them I'd write a letter to the doctor and tell him to send an order that would soon show them whether we could go out or not.

They said that would be the best thing to do, an so I'm goin' to write it this minute,'--which he did.

“'How long will we have to wait?'

says I, when the letter was done.

“'Well,' says he, 'the doctor can't get this before to-morrow mornin', an' even if he answers right away, we won't get our order to go out until the next day.

So we'll jus' have to grin an' bear it for a day an' a half.'

“'This is a lively old bridal-trip,' said I,--'dry falls an' a lunertic asylum.'

“'We'll try to make the rest of it better,' said he.

“But the next day wasn't no better.

We staid in our room all day, for we didn't care to meet Mrs. Jackson an' her crazy brother, an' I'm sure we didn't want to see the mean creatures who kept the house.

We knew well enough that they only wanted us to stay so that they could get more board-money out of us.

” “I should have broken out,” cried Euphemia.

“I would never have staid an hour in that place, after I found out what it was, especially on a bridal trip.

” “If we'd done that,” said Pomona, “they'd have got men after us, an' then everybody would have thought we was real crazy.

We made up our minds to wait for the doctor's letter, but it wasn't much fun.

An' I didn't tell no romantic stories to fill up the time.

We sat down an' behaved like the commonest kind o' people.

You never saw anybody sicker of romantics than I was when I thought of them two loons that called themselves Mrs. Andrew Jackson and General Tom Thumb.

I dropped Miguel altogether, an' he dropped Jiguel, which was a relief to me, an' I took strong to Jonas, even callin' him Jone, which I consider a good deal uglier an' commoner even than Jonas.

He didn't like this much, but said that if it would help me out of the Miguel, he didn't care.